When in Doubt, Specialize

I do have a prescriptive suggestion, though, in case you wanted one. When in doubt, specialize. There are a few reasons for this; let’s discuss them.

Lean against the bias to achieve the right mix#

Most people have a wide range of interests anyway; in other words, the natural tendency is to be a generalist and to learn just in case. So, you need to lean against the bias to achieve the right mix.

Forced to generalize#

You will seldom be forced to specialize, but you will be forced to generalize. Since specialization thrives with leverage, you will mostly choose to be in positions where you increase your specialization. However, when you are thrust into situations of needing to be self-sufficient, e.g., in a small startup, you will be forced to generalize anyway.

Learn how to be an expert#

Learning how to be an expert is a skill in itself. When you start a lot of things, you just get good at being a starter. This is a fairly mundane process of doing the things everybody knows you should do to get started, reading docs, going through tutorials, making toy projects. When you become an expert in something, you also learn how to be an expert.

You know what it’s like to push past the first Dunning Kruger peak, feel the depths of the ignorant intermediate, and see things through to become advanced in a domain. This makes all subsequent expertise gain easier.

Specialization is fractal#

Because you lack domain knowledge, what looks like specialization to you now may not look like it the more you learn about the domain and the deeper you go. Experts thrive on narrowness. When Ph.D. students write their theses, they don’t address all of politics, the stock market, or the entire human body. They study narrow things like the political landscape of a particular year, the valuation vs. momentum debate, or how sleep affects productivity. Mastery needs a boundary.

To paraphrase Tim Ferris, probably all of the developer heroes you look up to are walking flaws who’ve maximized one or two strengths. Here’s Dan Abramov’s list of things he knows he doesn’t know.

Specialist in public, generalist in private#

Here’s a final thought related to marketing yourself as a generalist or specialist. You don’t have to put your full self on display at all times. It can help tremendously to be publicly known for a specific set of skills, while privately, you maintain active interests in other capabilities.

Cory House saw a fifteen times increase in consulting inquiries when he decided to specialize in transitioning to React instead of offering general consulting. Same dev. Different pitch. Fifteen times the opportunities.